Tibet's sacred paintings are among the most marvelous creations of the human spirit, eye, and hand, a fascinating part of the great tapestry of the history of world civilizations. Arising from the Buddhist enlightenment movement, this art seeks not only to delight the viewer, but also to move and inspire the heart and spirit of the human being who seeks a deeper meaning for life and a higher future for all humanity. Worlds of Transformation furthers our understanding of this art, opening our imagination to the limitless transformative possibilities of life itself. In Worlds of Transformation, Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman study two hundred superb Tibetan tangka icon paintings, most never before published. These are lucidly explained, giving the history of the paintings and their creators, revealing their stylistic sophistication and variety, and offering insight into their transformative imagery.The paintings in this book are all from the Shelley and Donald Rubin Private and Foundation Collections, now numbering nearly one thousand works of Tibetan art. They comprise the largest treasury in the West of the finest Tibetan paintings
Worlds of Transformation, Rhie & Thurman, Hardcover, $95.00
Marylin M. Rhie is Jessie Wells Post Professor of Art and East Asian Studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she has taught since 1974. She has been awarded research grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Smithsonian Institution, traveling extensively in Asia for her research on the Buddhist art of various Asian civilizations. She is among the most insightful elucidators of Tibetan art. She curated and co-authored the catalogue for the world-wide, milestone exhibit, Wisdom and Compassion, 1991-1998, as well as for the catalogue and exhibits of Worlds of Transformation, 1999-2004.
Robert A. F. Thurman is Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York City, where he has taught since 1988. He holds the first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in America. He received Upasika ordination in 1964 and Vajracharya ordination in 1971, both from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is president of Tibet House US, founded in 1987 under the patronage of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to preserve the endangered civilization of Tibet � and he began its Repatriation Collection of Tibetan Art. Among the foremost Buddhologists and interpreters of Tibet and its Buddhist civilization; he is also an ordained Buddhist layman
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Contents: WORLDS OF TRANSFORMATION - Tibetan Art of Wisdom and Compassion |
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Forewords by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Robert A. F. Thurman, Shelley and Donald Rubin |
6 |
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Preface by Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman |
9 |
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Acknowledgements |
11 |
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Note on Transcriptions and Terminology |
11 |
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Worlds of Transformation by Robert A. F. Thurman |
12 |
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Tibetan Painting: Styles, Sources, and Schools by Marylin M. Rhie |
45 |
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Some Karma Kagyupa Paintings in the Rubin Collections by David P. Jackson |
75 |
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Worlds of Transformation: Catalogue |
128 |
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The Tibetan World: History as Sacred Icon |
130 |
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I. The Teacher Shakyamuni: Life and Lives |
131 |
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II. Arhat Immortals |
162 |
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III. Bodhisattvas |
192 |
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IV. Indian Philosophers and Great Adepts |
208 |
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V. Historic, Mythic, and Celestial Dharma Kings |
228 |
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The Four Orders, Their Archetype Deities, and Protectors |
241 |
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VI. The Nyingma Order |
243 |
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VII. The Sakya Order |
280 |
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VIII. The Kagyu Order |
312 |
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IX. Geluk Order |
347 |
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Transforming the World |
401 |
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X. Celestial Visions |
403 |
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XI. Mandalas |
429 |
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XII. The Tibetan World Transformed |
449 |
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Glossary |
492 |
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Bibliography |
502 |
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Index |
506 |
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Owner Attribution |
512 |
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